Excelsior Springs city officials voted unanimously Monday to terminate the city's contract with Flock Safety and pull all 15 automated license-plate-reader cameras from streets around town. The city manager now has 30 days to formally end the agreement, closing out months of public debate over privacy, data sharing and who gets to see where residents drive.
The vote, confirmed by KCTV5, came after the council approved an ordinance directing the city to stop sending money to Flock under its master services agreement starting in fiscal year 2027. The station reported it had reached out to Flock for comment and was still awaiting a response. According to fox4kc.com, the council's removal order covers all 15 ALPR cameras installed throughout the city, and the public works department planned to have them bagged Tuesday morning.
A Budget Fight That Foreshadowed the Final Vote
The move wasn't a surprise to anyone who had followed the city's finances this fall. Excelsior Springs had already approved an FY27 budget in September that left Flock entirely unfunded, as detailed by excelsiorcitizen.com. City Manager Melinda Mehaffy said at the time that the city had already paid for its current Flock contract, which she said runs through November 2027, with the next payment not due until August 2027 — a bill the new budget simply didn't cover.
Even so, the outlet noted that skipping that line item did not mean the cameras were being shut off automatically; it only signaled where the council's priorities were headed. Monday's vote to formally terminate the agreement and remove the hardware went further, resolving the ambiguity that budget season had left hanging.
Residents Organized Against the Cameras for Months
Public pressure had been building since at least mid-September. More than 100 people packed the Excelsior Springs Community Center on Sept. 15 for a town hall on the ALPR system, the same outlet reported. A local group calling itself Excelsior Springs Citizens Against Flock Cameras had formed around concerns about privacy, data collection and the broader reach of license-plate-reader networks, and its petition had collected 621 verified signatures as of Sept. 24.
Part of a Wider Retreat From Flock Nationwide
Excelsior Springs is far from alone. Secure Justice, an advocacy group, has tracked 214 U.S. cities and counties that have dropped Flock since 2021, including 90 in August 2026 alone, according to Ars Technica. In the 30 days before that report, terminations were averaging about three localities a day nationwide. A Flock spokesperson, Courtney Terlecki, told the outlet that new city partnerships were still outpacing nonrenewals by roughly 10 to one in 2026.
Missouri has seen its own wave of reconsiderations. The Maries County Commission terminated its Flock agreement Monday after a company representative failed to show for a public meeting, per ABC17NEWS. Pulaski County had already terminated its own contract in August following a community forum, while Jefferson City went the opposite direction and renewed its agreement that same month. Columbia was scheduled to hold a public hearing on its own Flock contract on Nov. 9, the outlet reported.
State Guidance and Company Changes Arrive Amid the Backlash
The policy churn comes as Missouri's Department of Public Safety has outlined best practices for automated license-plate readers, including Flock cameras, according to the Columbia Missourian. KMBC noted the guidelines arrive as scrutiny of the cameras grows across the country, including in the Kansas City metro area where Excelsior Springs sits.
Flock itself has responded to the criticism with policy changes. The company cut its default data-retention period from 30 days to seven, STLPR reported. Flock also announced safeguards requiring law enforcement to label every search with a criminal case number, with automatic reviews and lockouts triggered by abnormal activity, according to ABC News. The company said cities can also choose which types of offenses other agencies are allowed to access through their camera networks.
Similar fights have played out well beyond Missouri. In California, Richmond, Santa Cruz, El Cerrito and Los Altos Hills have all pulled back from or canceled their Flock contracts over privacy and data-sharing concerns, per KQED, while Mountain View ended its use of license-plate-reader technology entirely. In North Carolina, Asheville's police department has weighed early termination of its $72,000 Flock agreement, according to Blue Ridge Public Radio, and cost has become its own flashpoint elsewhere — Wired reported that Covington, Georgia, paid Flock $201,000 through August 2026 for maintenance and software, while Alpharetta's annual bill had grown to $381,000 by 2025.
